Jake Paul is slated to return to the ring in the main event of an Aug. 6 Showtime pay-per-view from Madison Square Garden, and the expectation has been for months now that his opponent would be Tommy Fury.
But the fight has not been officially announced yet, and the latest word has been that Tommy’s father, John Fury, was possibly pulling him out of the fight.
After an exchange on Twitter today, it seems as though the fight will indeed happen.
Paul got it rolling, laying into Fury in a Twitter video this afternoon.
“Yet again, I wake up this morning to another text from my manager saying that Tommy Fury is pulling out of the fight. We agreed to all of the terms. Everything is ready to go,” he said.
“We’re 45 days away from the fight. We agreed to his $2 million purse, we agreed to VADA testing, extra flights, extra rooms, extra tickets to the fight. We’re scheduled to have a press conference next week in New York. His whole entire team was, like, ‘Yeah, everything’s good, we’re signing the contract today, today’ — it kept on getting pushed, it kept on getting pushed until now.
“What’s the excuse? ‘Oh, I can’t come and I can’t do it because my dad can’t be there with me during the fight.’ Tommy, your dad has been banned from the United States for 15 years. You’ve known this the whole entire time. He’s a criminal, he’s not allowed in. When you fought Anthony Taylor in Cleveland, neither Tyson nor your dad were there with you in your U.S. debut, now all of a sudden you need your team with you? That doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense.
“I will agree to not have my team around me during the fight week. I will agree to not fight with my coaches in my corner. We can both fight solo, just like Devin Haney was gonna do against George Kambosos. This is what real boxers do, they make fights fuckin’ happen.
“You’re scared. You claim you’re a professional boxer, but you don’t want to make the fight with me, who you’ve talked so much shit about, who you’ve said you will spark, who you say I’m nothing compared to you? Where’s all that shit talk now, Tommy?
“You’re a fuckin’ atypical professional boxer who doesn’t want to make this fight actually fuckin’ happen. This is the biggest opportunity of your fuckin’ life and you’re fumbling the fuckin’ bag once again, and I can’t believe how fuckin’ stupid you are. Fuckin’ idiot.”
Fury did fuckin’ respond, though not in video form, so he didn’t fuckin’ take two fuckin’ minutes to fuckin’ lay it all fuckin’ out there.
“The fight is on. August 6th. Forget a team or any other bullshit,” he said. “I don’t need anybody to help me lay you flat on that canvas. Oh and thanks for finally signing the drug testing — you only agreed to it when you realised the fight was at risk. Who needs who?”